A Look at your HUD and Maneuverability Choices: Here’s a deeper dive into the information displayed across the in-game HUD imagery, and the wealth of control choices you can make.

You have an exceptional breadth of options to control your character in Multiplayer, with countless tweaks, configuration changes, sensitivity toggling, and masses of other minor elements to finely tune. Here, we’ll offer a quick check of the different settings you can fiddle with, most of which can be changed before and during a game. Note that we’re referring to the PlayStation® 4 version of the game, which all visual assets have been taken from. There are additional Audio settings, as well as Xbox One, PC, and Keyboard and Mouse control information that we’ll cover in a future Blog post.

Heads Up Display: Information from the Field of Battle

The image above shows an example of the in-game HUD. The different elements of the HUD, not all of which are shown in this example, provide quick, important, and tactical data that you must learn and utilize as you grow as a player. Here’s a brief look at what appears on-screen:

Compass (Top Middle): Offering complete 360-degree information, with the precise degree you’re facing shown in a yellow/brown color in the middle of the compass. Enemies may appear as red marks indicating their general direction, while named locations within a map also appear just under the central coordinates. Numbers change to compass directions within five degrees of 0 (North), 45 (Northeast), 90 (East), 135 (Southeast), 180 (South), 225 (Southwest), 270 (West), and 315 (Northwest).

Faction, Score, and Timer (Bottom Left): The emblem of the Faction your Operator is belongs to (either Coalition or Allegiance) is shown, along with pertinent scoring data, and a timer if the Multiplayer game has a countdown.

In addition, expect other icons to appear, such as scenic objects you can Mantle over, or areas you can Mount your weapon to (while holding down the aim/ADS trigger).

Killstreaks (Bottom Right): Icons of the three Killstreaks you’ve chosen, along with a dotted line showing how many kills are necessary to access the Killstreak, are shown above your weapon iconography. In addition, when a Killstreak is recharging, the chosen Killstreak, and a progress bar, are shown in this area.

Weapons Detail (Bottom Right): This gives immediate knowledge of the weapon you’re currently holding, the chamber and total ammunition (which may change color to yellow/brown to indicate you’re using specialized rounds), and the type of firing option you’ve selected for your weapon (if applicable). In addition, your Tactical and Lethal equipment, along with the number carried, are also prominently displayed.

Gaining Complete Control

When using a PlayStation 4 Controller in Modern Warfare on default settings, its buttons have the following commands (these settings can be adjusted in the Controller Settings Options menu):

X – Jump/Mantle: Jump across gaps, mantle over lower objects such as barriers or window sills, and climb certain scenery using this button. The depth of your jump may be influenced by your speed.

Circle – Crouch/Prone/Slide: When moving under normal circumstances, you tap this button to crouch, and hold it to go Prone, or tap it again to stand up. If you’re Sprinting and hold this button, you’ll Slide into a Crouch or a Prone crawl if you keep holding the button (on the Default Sliding controls).

Square – Use/Reload: If you need to access a context-sensitive object (like opening a door instead of charging through it), or you’re low on ammunition and wish to reload your weapon, utilize this button.

Triangle – Switch Weapon/Night Vision Goggles: Depending on how and when this button is pressed, this button has more than one separate function. Tapping the button will swap the weapon in your hands, whether it be a Primary to a Secondary weapon, vice versa, or any weapon you’ve picked up from the combat zone. Holding the button engages and disengages your NVGs (Night Vision Goggles), where appropriate, on applicable maps and modes.

L1 – Tactical Equipment: This utilizes the tactical equipment from your Loadout; usually a non-lethal grenade, but a Stim or Heartbeat Sensor are also options.

R1 – Lethal Equipment: This utilizes the lethal equipment from your Loadout; which ranges from mines to C4, to a throwing knife, to a good old-fashioned Frag Grenade.

L2 – Aim Down Sight: This pulls the view in slightly, removes or lessens your target reticle, and allows you to mount your weapon if you’re close to a wall, window sill, or other scenery that allows this.

L3 – Sprint/Tactical Sprint/Steady Aim: If you’re maneuvering, tap while you move to Sprint, or tap twice quickly while moving to Tactical Sprint (which causes you to move more quickly than a Sprint, but with your weapon pointed up and held in one hand, lengthening the time it takes to aim and engage the gun). If you’re using a sniper rifle, tap this to take an inhale of breath, and steady your aim by a significant amount.

D-pad Down – Gesture/Spray: This enables a chosen hand gesture or spray.

D-pad Left – Fire Mode: Utilizing this function when using a weapon that offers multiple firing modes – i.e. an Assault Rifle that has both fully-automatic and burst fire modes – changes the fire mode of that weapon. If you’re using a scoped weapon, this toggles the magnification of the weapon when looking through the scope itself.

D-pad Right – Killstreak: This engages a Killstreak. Tap right to launch a Killstreak or hold right to open a radial menu and select a Killstreak, if you have more than one available.

R3 – Melee: Pistol whip, strike, or otherwise bludgeon a foe at close quarters with the Melee attack or hold to attempt an execution when attacking an unsuspecting foe from behind. You can also melee doors open, too.

Touchpad – Scoreboard/Objectives: Tap the Touchpad to check the scores for yourself, your team, and your rivals, as well as other pertinent data relating to the particular Multiplayer game mode in question.

Options – Pause: This brings up your pause menu. In certain Multiplayer game modes, a mini-map is displayed in the center of the screen, along with icons of your teammates, and other informative data. In addition, you can access Social options, change your Loadout (which takes effect after your next death), and enter the robust Options menu to change every aspect of control scheme.

Speaking of control scheme settings….

Controller Settings

Controls: Modern Warfare comes with over a dozen presets for buttons and stick controls that you can toggle through to find something that fits your playstyle, with each option changing the preset controller layout functionality from the Default setting. You can also disable or enable Invert Vertical Looking, Vibration, as well as Horizontal and Vertical Stick Sensitivity (with 20 levels of axis sensitivity to pick from).

Weapons: Want to automatically switch weapons when the one you’re firing runs out of ammo? It can be done. Care to change the button combination necessary to mount a weapon on specific environmental structures, or disable mounting completely? Be our guest. Would you like to disengage weapon mounting via movement? It’s possible. Want to choose between holding or toggling your aim button when ADS’ing? Take your pick. There’s also choices to toggle or hold when cooking or readying tactical or lethal equipment, four types of Aim Assist (Disabled, Standard, Experimental, and Enhanced), Target Assist to switch on or off (the camera slows when the crosshair is about to move over an enemy), and something called Steady Aim Behavior; you can hold or toggle a button, usually when you’re aiming with a scope.

Movement: You can choose whether to hold or tap a button to slide, as well as enabling or disabling whether Sprinting interrupts your reloading sequence. Lastly, you can disable or enable the Vehicle Camera Re-center, which (when enabled) centers the camera automatically after a short moment, while you’re driving a vehicle.

General Settings

Screen: You can check your screen’s Safe Area and adjust it so none of the action at the edge of your screen isn’t visible. There are Brightness adjustments you can make too, as well as something called Film Grain: This adjusts the strength of the visual noise applied in-game. The default setting is 25.00/100.00, and the more noise you add, the grainer the game looks.

Accessibility: Aside from Subtitles and Language selections, we have two separate adjustments for Colorblind gamers: You can choose the Colorblind Type (None, Protanopia, Deuteranopia, and Tritanopia), which changes the color of various interface elements to match your type. You can also apply a Colorblind Target filter over the entire game world, the HUD interface, or everything on the screen. Next, you can change to play with a Keyboard & Mouse (yes, even on console) or Controller. Finally, you’re able to Disable or Enable World Motion Blur (the simulated blurring of moving objects), and Weapon Motion Blur (the blur effect when the camera or objects are moving rapidly).

Pre-Launch Intel: Additional Information and Content

Check back at the Activision Games Blog throughout the coming days and weeks for further intel. Check the Related Articles for further Call of Duty: Modern Warfare information.

Pre-orders at participating retailers are available now, or at CallofDuty.com.